Nintendo forecasts 35 million Wii sales by 2012

By Chris Clement / Wednesday, 23 May 2007

Nintendo of America Senior Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communication George Harrison forecasted sales of 35 million for the Wii in America by 2012 in an article published by Bloomberg. Analysts, however, do not necessarily share Nintendo's rosy vision of the future. "The 35 million target is a bit too optimistic for now as it seems the Wii is targeting light gamers, but the U.S. market has a lot of hard-core game players," said Etsuko Tamura of Mizuho Investors Securities Co. "It's too early to decide whether the Wii will be the winner among game consoles." While underpowered compared to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, Harrison does not anticipate an overhaul of the Wii's processing hardware in the foreseeable future. "We're starting to see in the performance of the PS3 and Xbox 360 that that's not necessarily motivating the market the way it used to," said Harrison. "So we're going to start work on the future technology only when we believe it's necessary." The Kyoto, Japan-based console maker has increased production at factories in China to help satisfy the current demand for Wii. Nintendo has sold 2.5 million units in the United States and nearly 6 million worldwide, according to the NPD Group. While both the Wii and the PS3 trail the Xbox 360 in overall sales, NPD Group numbers also show that the Wii has continually outsold the 360 this year in monthly sales in the U.S. The Playstation 3, the highest-priced console of the current generation, continues to trail both in monthly and overall sales. The Wii doubled the number of sales of its closest competitor with 360,000 consoles sold in the U.S. during April. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 sold 174,000 and 82,000 units, respectively. "Demand is much greater than we anticipated", said Harrison. "A year ago no one thought we would be in this position." Stay with The Wiire for the latest news on Wii sales forecasts.